Independence
by scifiromance
Summary: Chakotay is pulled into Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine's conflict after the incident with the Alpha Hirogen and the wounded member of Species 8472, leading to some enlightening conversations... One-shot, set in the aftermath of 'Prey',


"…and so I've confined her to Cargo Bay 2 until further notice." Captain Kathryn Janeway's agitated pacing around her quarters' coffee table came to a terse halt as she glanced over at her companion in the room, the former Maquis leader and her First Officer Commander Chakotay, her gaze narrowing uncertainly. "I've allowed her to continue her duties in Astrometrics on a restricted basis. She's been locked out of essential command systems and I expect you to stop her if you catch her trying to circumvent that…" Janeway sighed heavily, "I can't have a different set of rules for her, and she broke several of my most important ones today."

"I don't think Seven would expect leniency Captain, she's a part of this crew just like everyone else." Chakotay replied, "And I will keep an eye on what she's doing down in Astrometrics." He shifted uncomfortably on the flimsy dining chair he was sitting on, trying to tuck in his long legs. He didn't think now would be the right time to remind the Captain that, if she wanted to, Seven could do plenty of damage with just the 'non-essential' systems at her command. In the back of his mind, he didn't doubt that Seven could gain complete control of this ship with access to something as simple as a replicator.

"Oh, I don't think the Borg left Seven with the word 'leniency' in her vocabulary." Janeway remarked darkly, "As for expecting to be treated…punished like every member of my crew would be, I don't think she's sees it that way either."

Chakotay reached over for the mug of tea the Captain had presented him with and took a long, deliberate gulp as he debated whether to voice the question her comments were begging for. He almost gagged as he swallowed, like the Captain's anger over this situation with Seven, the Hirogen and Species 8472, the drink had been stewing far too long, and was bitter and cold. As with the meals she replicated and then partially tried to cook, or at least heat-up herself, the Captain liked to manually make their respective drinks for these dinners of theirs, generally leaving him with a soggy tea bag at the bottom of his mug on each occasion and the Captain hyped up by overly concentrated coffee. Finally, he decided, for the sake of his curiosity and to stop her from boiling over, he asked the question. "What exactly did Seven say to you?"

"She…" Janeway began tightly, her hands clenching by her sides for a moment as her throat seemed to close up, "She said she was puzzled." She reported shortly as she sank into the other chair across the small table from him, frowning in thought at how to proceed as Chakotay merely raised an eyebrow to urge her to continue. "She finds it _puzzling _that after all these months of encouraging her to 'cultivate her independence'…" Janeway mimicked Seven's formal inflections bitterly, causing Chakotay to grimace slightly behind his mug of tea, "…after trying to get her to let go of the Collective and embrace her independence and her humanity, how I can then punish her for asserting that independence?" Her lips twisted and Chakotay knew that, despite her unashamedly indignant tone, Seven's point had still hit home somewhere, gotten under her skin. "I _explained _to her that on a starship, on my ship with an established chain of command, there's a limit to individuality, at least to how she seems to view individuality, but then she accused me of being _frightened _of her! Angry and frightened because she doesn't deign to think like I do, because she's not becoming like me, like all of us!" Janeway halted for breath, her painfully tight chest heaving, but as she did so she saw something flicker over Chakotay's inscrutable face, something that made her freeze in disbelief. "You…" Her hands curled around the edge of the table for support, "You think she's right…"

The blare of her small kitchen's fire alarm cut through the tension that had been building in the room like the smoke just beginning to wisp out from the door of her oven. Jumping at the noise as if she'd been whipped, Janeway swore as she sprang up and shoved one hand into her already scorched pair of oven gloves and yanked the door open, hurriedly salvaging the cottage pie inside. "Damn it!" she exclaimed with more passion than another burnt meal warranted, but rather than give in to disaster she stubbornly dragged a knife around the blackened, disintegrating crust to loosen the pie from its pan and tipped it onto a serving plate before marching back to the table, looking over Chakotay's head. "It's still edible." She muttered quietly.

"Alright then." Chakotay agreed in the same tone, handing her his plate like an olive branch, onto which she doled out a generous slice of the pie and slammed the plate down in front of him before picking up on the previous taut thread of conversation.

"You think she's right, don't you?" she asked softly, her eyes pinched as concentrated on gouging out a piece of pie for herself with the knife she still held loosely in one hand.

"No, she's not _right_…" Chakotay tried to clarify the understanding he'd gained, although he doubted either she or Seven would relent enough to relate, "…but she's not entirely wrong either."

Janeway started to open her mouth to retort, eyes sparking dangerously for an instant, but then she seemed to think better of it, forking down a mouthful of pie instead, the tough chew giving her enough time to consider a more measured reply. "Why do you say that?"

"Well…" Chakotay began cautiously, "…you _have _definitely been pushing her in one direction since we severed her from the Collective…"

Janeway stared at him blankly, "There _is _only one direction for her, humanity!" she exclaimed accusingly.

"I know that, and deep down I think Seven knows that too." Chakotay told her firmly, holding his ground, "But you have to remember that just because she's been cut off from humanity doesn't make her a complete blank slate either. I wish we could've saved her at six years old, before the Borg could get their claws into her, but we didn't. She has preconceptions that we don't understand. Species 8472 are one of those, they were the Borg's greatest enemy, the only real threat they've known…"

"I know how she feels about them Chakotay!" Janeway broke in impatiently, "And those kinds of feelings are the ones holding her back! I was trying to help her; learning compassion towards them would've been a lifelong lesson for her, a real link to her humanity! But instead…" She trailed off, twisting her face away, "I tried to tell her that everyone faces an enemy at some point, I even told her that saving that one Cardassian during the war was a highlight of my career, a good deed I look to for guidance…" Chakotay's face hardened, his sculpted jaw locking and Janeway stiffened, jerking her own face upwards defensively, "Of course, maybe that analogy wouldn't stand up with some other members of this crew either…"

The Maquis, Chakotay mentally clarified darkly as he flinched, momentarily allowing himself to wonder how this woman would rank his level of compassion. Though he gave her little outward sign of his anger, Janeway regretted her words, true though she believed they were. They'd always fought to punch through the differences between them in their battle to get home. He surprised her, as the flare of guilt and hatred faded from his eyes to leave them dark and impenetrable, with his reply. "Why did you even pursue this Kathryn?" he queried pointedly, the dejection and distrust on his face stabbing at her, "It would've stood more firmly without the bounds of Starfleet protocol if we'd just had the Doctor treat that Hirogen and then gone on our way."

Caught off guard by his controlled, reasonable tone, Janeway's mouth puckered in thought. Unconsciously, she began to distractedly swirl a spoon into her coffee, though there was no sugar to add or milk to stir. "I believed it was time to learn about them, to build bridges. I don't regret that decision, but in the end the reality of the Hirogen was even worse than I suspected."

"I agree." Chakotay answered mutedly, "But perhaps we should've known better, about Species 8472 as well as the Hirogen."

Janeway bristled, "If you're criticising my decision to try to return that alien home, then you may as well join Seven in that Cargo Bay!" she snapped.

"No Captain, you did the right thing by the alien, the noble thing." Chakotay murmured calmly, breaking through the burnt pastry of his pie with the blunt point of his dinner knife, unsurprised to find it irredeemably raw inside. "But you have to consider that maybe Seven isn't prepared to be noble yet. You wanted her to be ready, but she wasn't. If you try to prod a scared animal forward, sometimes that animal will turn around and bite you."

Janeway swallowed before regarding him coldly, "You still think of her as the scorpion?"

Chakotay bit back his frustration, instead restraining himself to a resigned sigh. "We're all animals in some ways Captain."

* * *

The lights of the Mess Hall, dimmed for duration the long, empty hours of the night shift, automatically brightened as Chakotay walked in, head throbbing and his stomach aching with hunger. It was past midnight, the dinner having stretched to a torturous length as he and the Captain tried to smooth over the newest scratch on the scarred fabric of their relationship, really only creating more wrinkles of discord the more they tried to tolerate sitting in a sullen near silence. Eventually hunger and strain had driven Chakotay out like a fox being smoked out of a hole, and he now found himself here, lured by the hope of food. Once glance at the darkened strip of the galley told him that Neelix had long since packed up for the night, his more exotic dishes either accepted by the evening crowd or thrown in the waste disposal. As he started his tired journey to the replicator however, he heard something, a shallow intake of breath maybe, and suddenly noticed a shifting shadow among the outlines of chairs and tables. Squinting into the dark, he spotted the distinctive glint of gold among the muddy greys, then the gleam of silver as he made out features. Seven. He just couldn't seem to leave the events of today behind, haunting him as stubbornly as the two whose decisions had been so dramatically different, but in the end only one decision had been final.

Seven didn't move from her chosen position even as she sensed him noticing her, heard his steady steps come to a scuffling halt on the carpet for a long moment, his tall frame angled towards her, before he restarted his walk towards the replicators. She didn't need to look at him to know all this, but she found her gaze drifting from the simplicity of the stars anyway. He was different from the rest of the crew; the tattoo above his eye perhaps represented that best. She wondered if he realised how much that made him stand out, as if he were marked as part of a different unit, a tribe he called it. He was part of the others, the irrelevant conversation and crowds, and yet not, he seemed disconnected from the others and relatively at ease with being so. She tried not to flinch as she heard him issue a command to the replicator, the deep intonations of his voice making a chill run down her spine. It wasn't that he had an unpleasant voice, in fact he had the least abrasive one she'd heard, but it still set her on edge, brought vivid memories back of when she'd heard him with her mind and not her ears. That incident made her regard him with a respectful wariness she suspected he felt also, since they seemed to naturally avoid each other by mutual consent. He knew of her in a way the rest of the well-meaning crew could not, and she doubted that sat comfortably with either of them.

"May I sit here?" Chakotay almost dropped his tray of food himself when he saw what a violent start Seven gave before hurriedly settled back into an unnerving stillness. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to confront this, but since he already had tried to make his point with the Captain, and now Seven was here, he had a weird feeling the universe was pressing him to step in.

She was sitting on the very edge of the bench, inclined towards the viewport but generally facing the wall, giving him a side profile of her not entirely earthly beauty. Her blue gaze, dark and glassy, which had been staring ahead, flicked to him uneasily for a split second as he took her silence for permission and sat down. "I believe I am allowed to be here, Cargo Bay 2 is not fitted with a food replicator…"

The quiver he heard in her cut glass voice somehow made Chakotay's shoulders relax, "If the Captain didn't want you to go anywhere Seven you'd be in the Brig." He told her gently, "I just needed something to eat and I hate eating alone."

I do not like being alone ever, but on this ship it is the easiest path, Seven mused silently as she watched him shovel down a bowl of thick lentil and vegetable soup, wondering if she'd misunderstood the purpose of his dinners with Captain Janeway, it did not appear as if he'd consumed nutrients at all during the most recent one. "Are you here to counsel me in some fashion Commander?" she asked bluntly, her unease growing when Chakotay's face blanched with surprise at the sudden probe, "I ask because I have observed that you…often come to talk to the crew about the Captain's orders, I believe the Doctor has termed it 'softening the blow'." She had the grace to blush as his eyes widened, a wince passing over his attractive face, "You play many other vital roles on the ship also, of course." She assured him stiffly.

Chakotay however, hadn't exactly been offended by her assessment of him, more stunned by her insight. Just today it had been he who'd headed down to the lower decks to patiently reassure the crewmembers cut off from the Bridge, explaining to them why exactly they were involved with the Hirogen once again and Species 8472 to boot. He hadn't thought it would be Seven, of all people, who would give him a compliment about that, backhanded or not. "The Captain hasn't asked me to speak to you, if that's what you're asking." He told her honestly.

"Your efforts would be as futile as hers." Seven replied coolly, "I do not regret my decision, and you cannot convince me otherwise."

Chakotay was struck by the hard resignation in her tone. "I don't think any member of the crew would want you to lie, if that's how you really feel." He answered carefully, slowly exhaling.

His breath tickled the skin of her arm as her fist clenched on the table. "I never intended…" She began faintly before stalling, turning her face away from his searching eyes, taking a deep breath of her on as her spine straightened defensively, "I did not intend to help the Hirogen, he was _contemptible_…" The robotic steadiness of her voice wavered, and Chakotay watched the muscles in her slender throat shudder and constrict, "I…I told the Captain that I should not be around Species 8472, but she continued to insist…" Her gold lashes glittered against her ashen cheeks as she began to blink rapidly, still staring stubbornly at the wall rather than the man listening to her, "The Collective started the war, their pursuit for perfection started this, but…" She gave a broken sigh, "They were the only true threat the Borg have faced…insurmountable…" Her head dipped, her voice fading to a whisper, "Do you remember what they did to Ensign Kim?"

Chakotay stared at the table, the food he'd swallowed rising back up his throat as the images of Harry's face being consumed from the inside out, his face rotting and green. "I remember."

Seven's shoulders began to quiver, although the rest of her frame remained disturbingly still. "Millions of drones died by that method…slowly and in agony. The Collective mind can block out most things but not…" She trailed off, leaving her thoughts unsaid. "Species 8472 could telepathically manipulate the links between drones…leave them confused and alone." She turned to him abruptly, unshed tears creating a layer of her eyes like ice. "I didn't fear them then, I felt nothing, I was free of such things, but now I am afraid of them…I hate them…" She gulped hard, "But still, I did not intend to let that interfere…"

"No one's calling this premeditated Seven." Chakotay said quietly, gulping himself as he remembered Seven's irrational actions of the day, the blank terror on her face behind the distortion of the visor. The Captain had done the young woman a disservice, perhaps even a cruelty, by ignoring the power of fear, and yes hatred.

Seven's metal encased brow twitched, "Really?" she remarked drily, sighing as she wiped distractedly at her eyes, "I wouldn't have killed it myself, though the Hirogen…baited me. But then it attacked him, and I…I wanted them both off the ship…" She blinked again and it was as if she has flipped a switch, changing from the most emotional Chakotay had ever seen her back to the stoic, matter of fact, drone he knew. "I _never_ would've opened the rift into Fluidic Space. The alien may have been wounded, it may have been dying, its situation may have had an emphatic pull for the Captain, but she does not understand the threat. That alien would have been able to telepathically connect to the entire species when it returned, tell them about Voyager. Do you think that a single act of compassion would've erased the fact that it was this crew's desire to get home that gave the Borg a method to destroy them? They feel hate too and they believe in their superiority as much as the Collective. I do not regret ending the threat that was posed to us by both Species 8472 and the Hirogen. The Captain asked me to accept this crew, and I have, I am not sorry for refusing to be an instrument in mine and this crew's destruction!" Her voice cracked as she gazed at Chakotay levelly and he was surprised to see sadness and resignation in her face to replace the conviction, "The Captain is disappointed that I have learned human pragmatism before human compassion."

Chakotay smiled at her then, "Maybe. I don't know what would've happened Seven, neither do you and the Captain doesn't either. This turn of events is something we're all going to learn to live with. I think you and the Captain both made mistakes today, and I hope you learn from them, but the Hirogen is to blame too."

"I allowed him to affect me, agitate emotion…" Seven conceded quietly and caught pain flickering across Chakotay's face, fixing her eyes on him piercingly, "If the member of Species 8472 had been a Cardassian, would you understand?"

Chakotay blanched as Seven hit on an even more painful nerve, with an eerie accuracy, than the Captain had. "I _do _understand Seven, but honestly…I can't answer that. I don't know what I would've done, no one can honestly tell you what they would've done feeling what you did, okay?" He bit down hard on his lip, realising that he'd have to get this off his chest, "The Captain disputed what I did to the drones who were with you, what I almost did to you…"

Seven nodded silently before turning her face back towards him, her features calm, even contemplative as she studied him, "You should not regret that, I would not. We intended to assimilate this crew, you prevented that." She told him resolutely, "What could've happened is my guilt to bear." Her hand unclenched, her fingers scraping over the table, "It is wise to fear the Borg Commander, I do now." She sighed softly to herself, her gaze becoming vacant, "Fear and anger were my first independent emotions, it appears they still are."

She shivered in surprise when Chakotay laid his warm hand over her cool metallic one and squeezed it tenderly. "That won't be the case forever Seven, there's so much more, I can promise you that."

**A/n: Please review. I'm not sure where this angsty little idea from, but I hope it's worked out. It seemed appropriate for Independence Day. I hope my American reviewers are having a nice holiday, just a normal Thursday here in Scotland, sigh. **


End file.
